Page:Philosophical Review Volume 6.djvu/249

233 in it we have a right to see, as I have had occasion to say in regard to other of the child's processes, the progress of the race depicted with more or less adequacy of detail.

The child begins to be dimly aware of such a presence, in his contact with others, as that which has been called in the abstract the socius. What this is to him is, of course, at this early stage simply an element of personal quality in the suggestions which he now gets from others; an element not done justice to by either of the thoughts of self to which he is accustomed on occasion to react. He notes in the behavior of his father and mother, whenever certain contingencies of the social situation present themselves, a characteristic which, in the development of 'personality-suggestion,' might be termed the 'regularity of personal character.' He sees the father pained when he has to administer punishment; and he hears the words, 'Father does not like to punish his little boy.' He finds the mother reluctantly refusing to give a biscuit when it is her evident desire to give it. He sees those around him doing gay things with heavy hearts, and forcing themselves to be cheerful in the doing of things which are not pleasant. He sees hesitations, conflicts, indecisions, and from the bosom of them all he sees emerge the indications of something beyond the mere individual attitudes of the actor, something which stands towards these higher persons from whom he learns, as the family law, embodied possibly in the father, stands towards him.

Now I do not mean that the child sees all this in the terms in which I have described what he 'sees.' He does not see anything clearly. He simply feels puzzled at the richness of the indications of personal behavior that pour in upon him. But the very puzzle of these situations is just the essential thing. It means that the categories of personality which he has so far acquired, the two selves which exhaust the possible modes of behavior he is able to depict to himself in thought, are really inadequate. Here in these situations of his father and mother is more personal suggestion, which is still quite 'projective.' It is personal; things do not show it. But